Doesn't matter it's become a slur essentially the same way cis became a slur.

Kinda blew up in semi progressive circles a few years ago, around the time I completely checked out from mainstream social media activism. Essentially the left adopted the same kind of argumentative style the religious right had been using for years with loads of shibboleths and if you're not with me you're my enemy Anakin Skywalker school of debate tactics. Made it impossible to have productive discussions on most topics.

It was back when they were arguing about bathroom rights or whatever, I was always of the mind that "provided people are going through the proper legal and medical channels it's largely a non-issue, and beyond that let people use the single occupancy handicapped bathroom if they feel uncomfortable with using the normal one" but there was always a loud group of utterly brainless types that wanted to claim that this accounted for discrimination and that anyone should be allowed to choose whatever bathroom they want for "essentially" what amounts to any arbitrarily chosen reason.

Somewhere between the extremes of "Trans isn't real" and "We need to accept everyone" there's the truth. Some minority of people are legitamately trans and there needs to be a proper vetting process which seems largely abandoned now. It's also entirely within the realm of possibility that some people will pretend to be trans simply to gain access to women's only spaces and commit sexual crimes, denying this doesn't make the problem go away, it's like denying the proclivity of pedophiles to seek out positions of trust. It's wrong to assume that teachers are all pedophiles certainly but that doesn't mean strong vetting and scrutiny is not needed on the position. It's very similar to the trans issue, most I'd argue are far from dangerous but there's a small minority of psychopaths that will seize on any and every opportunity allowed them to victimize others and we cannot deny this reality. In no way does recognizing it constitute a violation of people's rights either. Quite the contrary, if trans people are to have their rights protected then strong legal and medical vetting needs to take place lest they be lumped in with the psychopaths and sexual predators. As that one school in Virginia recently experienced with their horrible rape case, now the entire anti-trans mantra is justified by the actions of one, and you'd have to be braindead stupid to not get that it's not a matter of if it will happen, it's a matter of when, and it's completely avoidable if they just use strong vetting process and common sense of not letting the penis havers get intimate access to the vaginally inclined.

In other words biological sex is fucking real. If it's not real then what's the point of being trans?

Most people are naturally quite hesitant to get into the weeds on these issues because it's quite messy and there's no way around offending people's sensibilities but we do need to take precautionary measures against potential abuse instead of our current reactionary style of just letting things run out until the problems arise. There's very proper ways of dealing with this as a society and it's largely how it was dealt with in the pre-internet days. Strong medical barriers to entry. .